It is becoming less likely we are surprised to learn about the demise of nonagenarians. Back when I was younger, someone making it to 70 or 75 was pretty amazing.
This past week, Dr. Walter Graf died at the ripe old age of 98. You are wondering why I would include an obit for a cardiologist on my blog? Come on, you know that I must consider Dr. Graf pretty special. Very special to a whole bunch of folks. Obviously, the Los Angeles community felt so, too- 100 ambulances and fire trucks accompanied his body to the gravesite.
Not because he grew up poor in the Bronx (NY City), attended City College (NY), even that he graduated from UCSF Med, or that he was an army doc. It is because he, while teaching at USC and in private practice, was one of the key folks in the passage of the 1970 bill authorizing paramedics to administer emergency care. Up until this bill was signed by Governor Ronald Reagan, that sort of activity was limited to nurses or physicians. And, you can bet his fellow health care professionals were lobbying hard to snuff out this bill.
Graf was also the one to develop the Daniel Freeman Paramedic Training Program. That was after he already had instituted the first dedicated cardiac care unit at the Daniel Freeman Hospital (then in Del Ray and Inglewood, CA; the hospitals have since been taken over by Tenet). Dr. Graf (also chief of staff at those hospitals) decided to equip a modified Chevy van with a defibrillator and a nurse in 1969. He called these HEART cars… Heart Emergency Assistance Response Team vehicles.
Graf’s concept was to provide a mobile critical care unit for those suffering heart attacks. Before this, heart attack victims were simply rushed as quickly as possible to the hospital- where, more often than not, they met their demise. These units are commonplace now because of Graf’s efforts.
His HEART cars were a start- they provided an ability to save patients’ lives. And, after the passage of his bill (his ‘cohorts in crime’ were J. Michael Criley, Eugene Nagel and Leonard Cobb) in 1970, these HEART cars were populated with firefighters and EMT (emergency medical technicians), greatly increasing the ability to reach the public, since we no longer had to rely on using a doctor or a nurse in each vehicle.
While the first independent rescue squad was instituted in the Commonwealth of Virginia (Roanoke) in 1928, they too relied upon the services of a nurse or physician. It wasn’t until I moved to Virginia (1976) that the EMT paramedics were certified to provide care or that there was an instructor program for them. Two years later (1978), the Virginia Rescue Squad Assistance Fund was developed, with money made available the next June to units around the Commonwealth.
In 1977, the Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad (CARS) was named to be one of 4 best such squads in the US. The system, from a tiny community (then with around 50,000 residents), shared that honor with Seattle, Chicago, and LA- all of which’s units were part of their fire departments, not independent units like CARS. By 1989, the year I left Charlottesville for Northern Virginia, CARS was the busiest rescue squad in the USA.
All because Dr. Walter Graf started his paramedic program and developed his HEART car concept. That’s an impact felt by the many survivors of heart attacks. It’s why we all should note his life.
Alav Hashalom. May he rest in peace.
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